Conflict, crises, office politics and major shifts in the economy share a similarity. All of them are tricky situations. Whether or not you realize it, you regularly face different forms of these circumstances in fulfilling daily job responsibilities.

How do exceptional leaders handle these challenges? Exceptional leaders distinguish themselves from their counterparts by the way they recognize the type of situation and successfully respond to it. Success involves more than addressing their own interests. Genuine success is defined by how their response impacts the work environment and individuals in it.

Types of Tricky Situations

If you take a closer look at tricky situations, you will find two general types that can have a significant effect on your responsibilities at work and often your life outside of work. One type originates from outside of the workplace, and the other type emanates from within the workplace.

Difficult circumstances originating outside the workplace include crises (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina), international conflicts and substantial changes in the economy. Even though they come from outside of it, they affect the workplace because of their size and scope.

Common forms of tricky situations originating inside the workplace encompass office politics, organizational restructuring, holding people accountable, speaking truth to power and interpersonal conflict. While the internal situations may not have the same scope or impact as those originating in the external environment, they still are precarious for many individuals who encounter them.

Keep in mind that tricky situations from outside the workplace can also spur those inside the workplace. For instance, an economic downturn can prompt political behavior inside an organization as employees go into survival mode to protect their jobs.

Tricky Elements

The combination of two elements creates tricky conditions. The first is uncertainty. When you face a circumstance you haven’t encountered before or something new is added to a familiar circumstance, uncertainty is the result.

For example, uncertainty is evident in a crisis such as COVID-19. Because COVID-19 is a novel virus, you try to figure out how to fulfill job responsibilities while dealing with the challenges of a pandemic. As another example, uncertainty is present when you meet a VIP and find yourself in direct conflict with this person whom you discover has a short fuse.

If there is uncertainty, there is also risk. Risk is the second element that creates tricky conditions because mishandling a circumstance can quickly cause it to go sideways or have the opposite effect of what is intended.

For instance, risk is present as you deal with COVID-19 because you don’t want to do anything to cause yourself or your colleagues to disengage or worry, or put anyone’s personal health in jeopardy. In the example of the VIP possessing a short fuse, risk is involved as you attempt to make your point without setting off this volatile person and potentially damaging a new relationship with a critical stakeholder.

Positions and Titles Can Be Misleading

Because leaders are described in a variety of manners, let me clarify how I define them. Leaders are not determined by their positions in an organizational hierarchy. Nor does it matter whether they possess the title of vice president, director, manager or supervisor. It is often assumed that people with these titles are leaders. Whether they really are, remains to be seen.

Regardless of position or title, a leader can be anyone who sets direction, aligns and motivates others and/or moves an undertaking forward in some way. This ranges from determining company strategy to spearheading an initiative to rallying team members for what needs to be done.

Uncertainty, Risk and Finesse

Conditions involving uncertainty and risk reveal those who are true leaders and those who are not due to their finesse (or lack of it). Finesse is the way people carry themselves as well as understand, process and deftly perform in tricky situations. Action underpins finesse because it relates to how these individuals rise to the occasion via their response in real time and in the future.

Finesse is an integral part of how exceptional leaders operate. As they gain an understanding of each circumstance and the people impacted by it, they estimate the effect of decisions and actions to determine the best approach for obtaining the optimal outcome. They also hold themselves and their collaborators accountable for use of this approach as well as the consequence. As a result, these leaders are more effective in their endeavors, and they create motivating environments that catalyze the success of those around them.

Because tricky situations involve uncertainty and risk, errors may occur. Exceptional leaders handle the errors with finesse. When mistakes are made, these leaders refrain from pointing fingers or looking for scapegoats. Instead, they recognize how they caused or contributed to the errors, take responsibility and rectify them (i.e., they own them and fix them).

If you want to finesse uncertainty and risk, consider these suggestions:

Build on your baseline. Take the time to understand the essentials of finesse and honestly evaluate your strengths and limitations. With this as a foundation, devise and implement your action plan.

Remember finesse is a “what” and a “how.” Keep in mind finesse is not just a matter of knowledge. It is a matter of proficiency that you develop over time through focused effort in a variety of contexts.

Combine confidence with humility. By relying on your values and trusting your abilities, you are able to access the fortitude to address whatever comes your way in a steadfast manner. As you do, be aware of your strengths and limitations while appreciating the contributions of others, and how you might learn from them and serve them.

No matter where you work or what industry you are in, you will continually encounter tricky situations as a leader. How effectively you deal with these circumstances depends upon the finesse you demonstrate.

Note: This article originally appeared in Forbes.

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Ryan Lahti is the managing principal of OrgLeader and author of The Finesse Factor. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: People Talking in Hallway, Pexels)

In the last decade, noteworthy advancements in medical applications of nanotechnology have become more prevalent. As SingularityHub points out, researchers are developing nanoscale patterns on medical implants that can stimulate bone cell growth and positive gene expression. Others are working to make guided nanoparticles that detect (and even destroy) cancer cells.

Multiple groups, like the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Stanford, are altering various nanoparticles to get behaviors useful to medical professionals. For example, nanoparticles are being created that give off a detectable color signal when a cancer cell is found or that hold onto a cancer cell until it can be studied.

More unique reactions have been developed in the lab. For instance, some nanoparticles absorb light and then produce very low-power acoustic vibrations when a tumor is located or even release heat to kill a cancer cell.

At the University of Chicago, scientists are testing a way to spur checkpoint blockade into more potent action using nanoparticles. Checkpoint blockade therapy works by interfering with cancer’s ability to turn off the body’s immune reaction. When cancer cells first develop, the body is able to recognize them as foreign, triggering T-cells to attack and eliminate them.

As malignant cells multiply and form tumors, they release biochemical signals that suppress the immune system, and the T-cells no longer function properly. Checkpoint blockade therapy obstructs those signals, makes T-cells see the cancer cells as invaders again and allows the immune system to do its job. The problem, says chemistry professor Wenbin Lin, is that if a tumor has been growing for years there are no longer any T-cells inside it to activate. This causes the therapy to fail.

“So, what we’re trying to do is to come up with ways to recruit T-cells to the tumor,” he says, “and if you have a way to make the T-cells recognize cancer cells, the T-cell will be able to kill the cancer cells.”

The treatment Lin and collaborators invented is a drug cocktail contained in nanoparticles. The nanoparticles assemble themselves from zinc and a drug called oxaliplatin, which is widely used against advanced-stage metastatic colon cancer. A photosensitizing agent called pyrolipid forms the outer layer.

When light is shined on the pyrolipid, it generates molecules that can kill cancer. It also activates T-cells that can recognize cancer cells thereby enabling the nanoparticles to pack a triple punch.

Used in concert, the nanoparticles and a checkpoint blockade agent eliminated tumors in a mouse, even when the tumors were widely separated and one tumor had received no treatment. This ability to activate T-cells in one place and have them travel to disease sites in the body could be a powerful tool for treating cancer.

Most patients that struggle in their battle with cancer do so because of metastatic disease, not their primary tumor. When patients have surgery, doctors don’t know if there are other, smaller lesions elsewhere in the body.

“You cannot treat them because you don’t know where to look for them,” Lin says. “If you activate immune cells, they can home in to cancer cells selectively. So, you have a better chance of getting rid of these small metastatic tumors throughout the body.”

Although ongoing research is still needed to ensure the safety and success of nanotechnology medical applications, recent discoveries definitely make you think about what is to come. Treatments, such as those for cancer, could look very different in the near future.

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Ryan Lahti is the managing principal of OrgLeader and author of The Finesse Factor. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Nanotechnology Book Cover by jurvetson)

How confident are you that passwords are enough to protect your data as a consumer? Michael Nadeau, senior editor at CSO magazine, believes the best thing you can say about using a password for authentication is that it’s better than nothing. High-profile breaches like Equifax, however, have exposed millions of passwords and user IDs, calling into question even that faint praise. Consumers should assume that at least some of their passwords have been compromised. Otherwise, they create a dangerous false sense of security.

If you’re still not convinced about the seriousness of password vulnerabilities, consider these points from the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report:

• Hacking still accounts for the largest percentage of data breaches.
• Eighty-one percent of hacking-related breaches involved either stolen or weak passwords.

Password-only protection is permanently broken, and any organization relying on it is placing its business and reputation at risk. Even if they avoid a breach, awareness of the shortcomings of password protection is much higher now thanks to Equifax. If that’s how you protect customers’ data, they will think twice about trusting you with it.

Authentication Alternatives

Alternatives like two-factor authentication (2FA), multifactor authentication (MFA), behavioral analytics, and biometrics have been available for some time, but adoption rates are low. The growing threat of breaches and consumer awareness is lowering barriers to implementing these options — primary barriers being user resistance, complexity and ROI.

All these alternatives can be compromised, some more easily than others. Dustin Heywood, senior managing consultant for IBM’s X-Force Red security testing team, shared that all authentication (such as a fingerprint, a face, an iris scan) are broken down into bits and bytes, and they are basically a “shared secret.” Because these shared secrets are stored digitally like a password, it is theoretically possible to steal them. The difference is that it’s harder to do so.

The goal is to make it so difficult to gain access that most cybercriminals will look elsewhere for easier pickings. Many companies use a combination of authentication methods depending on the risk, user considerations and value of the data being protected to reach a reasonable expectation of security.

While consumers might be more accepting of more complex authentication to protect health and financial data due to recent high-profile breaches, not all service providers offer the option. “A lot of banks, because of work that was done quite some time ago, think that having security questions tied to an account is a second factor, which it really isn’t,” says independent security researcher Jessy Irwin. “People want an extra layer of protection, and don’t have the option to turn anything on. They have to go to customer service or an account representative or up a chain to even ask for these features.”

Robert Block, senior vice president at intelligence-based authentication provider SecureAuth, thinks the challenge of implementing stronger authentication is not with the technology. It is about getting decision makers to determine the level of acceptable risk, the number of factors to support and the way to present those factors to the end user.

Whether it is a smartphone or something else, requiring ownership of a device for access limits the damage a cybercriminal can do. Harry Sverdlove, co-founder/CTO of Edgewise Networks, believes the most reliable scheme would require something users know (password, answers to security questions), something they have (smartphone, token device), their location, and something they are (biometrics, behavioral analytics).

If you want your data as a consumer to be better protected, companies need to think beyond passwords. Creating more obstacles for a cybercriminal makes it more likely this individual will move on to another target.

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Ryan Lahti is the managing principal of OrgLeader and author of The Finesse Factor. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Password, Pixabay)